


The Present

by captainlandwhaleamerica



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Josh has it fight me on this, Mentions of Mandy - Freeform, Missing Scene, Quiet Realization of Feelings, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 07:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17597387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainlandwhaleamerica/pseuds/captainlandwhaleamerica
Summary: The photo frame Mandy gives Josh in Season 1 comes back to haunt him after she leaves the White House. He can't let go of it, so Donna turns it into a gift.





	The Present

**Author's Note:**

> There's an episode of TWWW where they acknowledge that there's a photo frame of Josh and Donna in his office somewhere (a LONG HELD theory of mine) and so this is an imagining of how that got there. The picture I used for inspiration can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/y7xsbrae
> 
> I think this is my favorite fic I've written yet. I love early Josh/Donna with all my flamin shipper heart.

Mandy's departure, while predictable, left a hole in Josh’s chest larger than expected. It wasn’t because he was still in love with her or unresolved tension, or even because she was an asset to the team. It was far more troubling. As much as Mandy aggravated every fiber of his being, as much as she brought out the vindictive, irritable and nasty parts of him, he felt the loss with a sharp and surprising acuity. It sat in the bottom of Josh’s heart, pulling every thought, every memory and every interaction down into that dark place he thought he had escaped years ago. 

About a week after she left for Los Angeles, he was rooting through his desk in pursuit of a working pen and found the picture frame she had given him before her first day, his face still blacked out in magic marker. The picture seemed a perfect rendering of their relationship; not an equal partnership, but a battle for the upper hand with no rules and plenty of consequences. He knew that toxicity was in the past, but the anxiety continued to spread. Surely Mandy’s departure was a signal of worse events to come? How long before Sam and CJ and Leo and Toby eventually went their own way? It was barely over a year into the first term, but he'd been around long enough to know that the The White House had higher turnover rate than the typical job. He also had a bad habit of losing the people he loved. Would he be able to move on from this White House, this President, this team? Would he ever learn to let go of work and enjoy his life? Or would the work that lit a fire in his soul eventually consume him too? With each question, the anxiety rose, infecting the logic and reason he relied upon. As much as he wanted to throw the photo out, he knew that wouldn't calm him. So it remained on his desk. 

Three days later, he came back from a staff meeting tired and furious, which was not an uncommon sentiment. In his anger, he tossed a stack of briefing papers on the desk, upsetting the already messy contents, which spilled onto the carpet. He cursed under his breath and bent down to pick them up. As he gathered the folders, he felt something underneath that was decidedly not paper. Curious, he uncovered the object, and his frustration and anger faded away almost instantly. It was Mandy's photo frame, but transformed. The magic marker monstrosity had been taken out, and in its place was a photo of himself and Donna in the bullpen. He remembered the moment immediately. It was one of the first days after the inauguration, when everything was still new and hazy with hope and purpose. There had been photographers flitting around, tasked with capturing the energy and “introduce the public to the new, young and bold administration”, and their presence had made it near impossible to get anything of substance done, so he had resorted to bothering Donna. Their rapport was effortless and endless from a mere two weeks into her joining the campaign, but something had changed when they had won. Whether it was the sweet taste of victory or the fact he woke up knowing he would see her every day, or some combination thereof, he wasn’t sure. He tried not to analyze that too closely. Regardless, Josh was noticing things, staring too often, too much. Too long.

She was smiling at him in the photo, deep in the midst of a story about her tragic navigation of the DC Metro system. Unlike Mandy, Donna smiled with her whole face, and every feature was brightened by the expression,. It was the kind of smile you wanted to fall into. 

“I swear to God Joshua, Columbus himself wouldn’t have been able to decipher that map”

“Historically speaking, Donna, I don’t think Columbus is the example you want to use when referring to successful navigation. He was looking for India, not the Bahamas, after all. Also, he didn’t have a map. Sort of the whole point of discovery.”

“Do you find special pleasure in obliterating my stories before they’ve even begun, or is it just part of your job description?”

“I am appalled you even have to ask that question, Donnatella”

“The number of things that appall you, Joshua, are incomprehensible. How did you ever manage to get anything done before I forced you to quit yelling and actually work?”

“I didn’t manage,” he answered without hesitation. She beamed at him, and that’s when the camera went off. The click startled them both out of the moment and they had stepped backwards simultaneously. There was an awkward pause as the photographer walked away. 

“Well anyways, I don’t know what you expect, Josh. I grew up in Wisconsin. The most complicated form of transportation there is how the tractors line up for the town parade,” Donna said.

“See, when you say sentences like that and expect me to take you seriously, I begin to question my hiring decisions” 

“And when you joke about the best decision you’ve ever made, that’s when I question the faith the President has placed in you,” She responded, whacking his arm with her porfolio before walking away. 

The memory was far lighter than more recent ones, and it the sheer act of remembering it lifted his heart. He grinned, and the frustrations of twenty minutes prior disappeared when he noticed a final detail. 

Stuck to the bottom of the frame was a sticky note with four words printed on it: 

I'm not going anywhere.  
DM

Letting his thumb graze over the curve of her smile, he walked over to place it on the bookshelf, where it would be away from the chaos of his desk, but close enough that he could glance up and be reminded that the people that mattered would were never far away.

He felt her hovering in the doorway behind him, watching. He could guess the look on her face, equal parts concern, relief, joy and pride. He wondered briefly how long the photo had been buried before turning back to face her. When he saw the exact emotions he predicted in her features, he knew the answer to the persistent question that had been unconfronted by either of them since the moment they met. He looked at her as if for the first time, holding their history in his hands and seeing their future in the space between them. 

A long silence passed, uncommon for them. 

“Hi” 

“Hi” 

“You have a meeting with the Minority Leader in three minutes. Want to do calls before?”


End file.
